Yes. Jumping into this course can be overwhelming at first but treat it like eating an elephant. Just take one bite at a time.
One of the goals for this semester is to help you understand what distance education really is — not just what Blackboard is trying to sell or what “the literature” says about it — but what it really is. To do that, you’ll need to spend some time looking at a lot of different tools and environments. We’re starting out small (hard to believe) with the basic communications toolset.
Email: Still the most common collaborative tool in the world. When a group uses an email list server, it means they can collaborate easily, with low bandwidth, using a very familiar interface. Some of you are learning that it’s not exactly trivial to get everybody ON the list, but once there, it’s going to streamline things greatly.
TappedIn: As an alternative environment to Blackboard, it offers some interesting comparisons. In Blackboard, you never know if anybody else is logged in with you or not. In TappedIn, there’s a tab right there that shows who’s on and where they are. In Blackboard, you’re always alone. In TappedIn, you MIGHT be there alone — or there could be 200 people logged into various places. The bandwidth requiremens are also quite low, which makes the barrier to entry very low. A modest computer with dialup access can deal with TI very easily. Further, in addition to having the chat, members can get an office, and will get transcripts of their conversations emailed to them when they log out. You don’t need to take notes … the whole conversation is transcribed for you and sent.
Blogs: This is a stretch for some of you but blogs with RSS feeds may be one of the single most powerful tools in education today. We’ll talk more about them as we go, but keep in mind that one of the single most motivating factors in getting student participation is a sense of ownership. By having you set up your own blogs — blogs you own altho I am asking you to write stuff — you OWN those spaces. You can write whatever you want — the more you write, the better your grade. You can make them look how you want — up to your level of skill — but the presentation interfaces in both uniblogs and wordpress.com are excellent and you can at least pick a “pretty shell” to wrap your blog in.
RSS and Feed Readers: The ability to have computer-readable content means that we can have computer-agents dealing with helping us decide what content we want to see and under what conditions and circumstances. The software you need is called an ‘aggregator’ or ‘feed reader’ and there’s a nice write up on the “Help Me!” forum about what a ‘gator is. We haven’t really gotten to what we do with them yet, but that’s coming. We need to get everybody’s blog up and running and all the RSS feeds set up so everybody can see what anybody else is saying without spending 20 minutes wandering from website to website.
I know this feels like a lot to take on right out of the box, but there’s nothing like having to use the tools to really understand how they work. In just a few days, we’ll be over this initial hurdle and we’ll be using these tools to help us come to grips with the strange world of Distance Education. And just remember, if it feels like a lot to take on all at once, you eat any elephant just one bite at a time.
August 22nd, 2006 at 8:37 am
Day 2…
I have learned so much already. I found TappedIn much easier than the chat room available within Blackboard. I will be recommending TappedIn to my online faculty at Big Sandy. Communication is no longer a barrier in online learning. I need to learn how to feed the “Gator”. Still not clear on this one. Time will tell.
Have a nice day!
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:48 pm
Great analogy! ***CHOKE***…but the timing was a little off.
August 23rd, 2006 at 9:54 pm
I often have to remind myself to take things one step at a time. It’s very easy to look at the big picture and feel overwhelmed.
August 24th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Hi - I came across your site in searching feedster for blog postings about distance learning. I work at Blackboard and am looking for candidates who are going back to school as adults and studying via Blackboard. I am interested to learn more from these people for an idea for a back-to-school story I would like to offer to magazines and newspapers.
I’d love to hear from anyone who is willing to share their story with me - good, bad or otherwise about using Blackboard /distance learning - to go back to school. Please email me at mchotiner@blackboard.com.
Thanks,
August 20th, 2007 at 9:41 pm
Well today isn’t a very good day to ask me about my website, but oh well. I must admit, the conversation is stimulating and I have really been bothered, or maybe bothered isn’t the correct word, perhaps preoccupied with the idea of getting students to “think”. I am ashamed that I have never thought about it. Or in this pretense. In my lab, I am trying to teach computer skills in varying degrees of levels to students in high school. What kind of thinking goes on here? When you teach skills, how is thinking involved. What about problem solving? I hope that these thoughts and ideas change my own thinking process and the thinking processs of my students. Invigorating is the word that comes to mind. This class is already invigorating and it is only day 2.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:07 am
[...] Welcome to Day Two. Some of you are still struggling to make sense of it. Please read Eating the Elephant for a little background on what the various tools are for. [...]
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:16 am
Eating the Elephant was very interesting. It gave me a better view of all the types of communication we have been gathering.I like the tool idea. I already appreciate the time that the reader saves by having all our blogs in the same place.
I was overwhelmed in Tappedin the other night but maybe it was because I had been on line for quite a while. I tend to get involved in what I’m doing and forget about the time. Then I am exhausted getting up at 5:00am for work. After reading about all the positive aspects of Tappedin, I will take more time t get to know the site better. I have been thinking about a site to post for my students and I may look into this one more closely.
Morning arrives early…….Goodnight.
August 22nd, 2007 at 10:12 am
When I read all the stuff we had to do the first week of class, I almost cried. I’d never even heard of a feed aggregator before, so how was I supposed to figure out how to download it and add feeds on it without direction. After being grumpy for a few hours and a lot of help, it’s finally done. I can even start seeing the benefits.
This posting helps clarify what we’re going to be doing with all the stuff we’ve downloaded. I was wondering what everything was for. It seemed like we just got the stuff, but I had no idea what to do with it. I’m glad that there is some clarification and I finally feel like I have a sense of what’s going on in this class.
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:09 pm
It IS easy to become overwhelmed with so much new information. However, such is the plight of a lifelong learner.
I am really interested to see how the blogs function as a collaborative work this semester, and hope to implement the use of blogs in my own classroom this year. I particularly like the mailed transcript in TI…. very nice.
-Kim
August 24th, 2007 at 2:01 pm
I have been dealing with technology for years - mostly through secretarial duties - but I can honestly say that the five days that I have spent in this class has already taught me several things I have never been introduced to! I really like the “blog” concept especially in the classroom because it can provide the teacher with a tool that present a topic and have the students reflect. This is a wonderful pair and share tool for any classroom even at the elementary level! I am also finding out more about Tapped-In and the tools that it can offer. I was talking with Dr. Lowell today and where I teach Information Technology, there are specially designed classrooms for K-12 students that are very secure where you can conduct learning environments for your students. This also provides them with ways to be introduced to other cultures and points of views! Another great classroom tool!!!!!
August 24th, 2007 at 9:23 pm
This has, in reality (virtual or not), been fascinating to me. When I finally understood how to acquire the various tools, I was thrilled because, like some of the others have indicated, the whole process was a bit scary in the beginning.
The tappedin setup is really cool. For a little while, I felt like I was walking around the Sears Tower alone with no one to ask directions. It was fun, though.
August 25th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
Thank you for the good explanations.
August 19th, 2008 at 6:24 am
[...] For a run down on the tools, see “Eating the Elephant.” [...]
August 24th, 2008 at 11:23 pm
I admit I have been a little overwhelmed about starting this class, but I am trying to take your advice and “take one bite at a time”! Things seem to be getting better–I hope they stay that way!!